New Member New Owner Need Advice

[Nathan Haass]

Folks
Recently acquired one my father-in-laws Parkers a GHE-28G (s/n 237135), its in very nice shape. The fore end was attached to barrel when I received, but lever was not fully seated. Spent quite a bit of time researching on the forum and believe the problem to be that some minor adjustment was required to the barrel "lug". My wife was not comfortable with me adjusting so we took to local gunsmith who said he could fix.

Fast forward: He indeed got the lever to fully seat but after I picked up and upon close inspection I noticed a couple of things:
1. Screw heads were not aligned parallel/perpendicular to the barrel. I had taken a picture of fore end before I took it in.
2. I noticed a small crack in wood emanating from LH screw going through end of iron into wood stock (see attached photos).
3. Also the gunsmith gave me a small piece of metal he said he recovered from taking iron off the fore end. He said he thought it was a piece to a spring. Should have been my first glue that all was not well.

Questions:
1. Can crack be fixed? and if so a recommendation for competent gunsmith. I live in the Pacific Northwest.
2. If I send to someone to fix can I just send fore end or do I need to send complete gun? I believe I can address the lever seating problem based on the technical information I got from studying the forum threads.

Thank you in advance for you help.
Nathan